Three arrested on charges of murdering two Sunni students; cause of murder announced as "personal differences"
Heydar Asiabi, the Chief Justice of Golestan Province, announced on Tuesday, May 26, that three people have been arrested on charges of murdering two Sunni students in Gonbad-e-Kavos, and that "four weapons of war have been discovered" from the home of a suspect who shot at the two students.
He identified the arrested individuals as "Sunni" and said that the reason for the murders was "personal differences" and that "the murders have no external motivation or connection to terrorist groups."
The killing of two Sunni students, "Gol Mohammad Akhund Pejman" and "Abdul Rahman Akhund Khoja," occurred on the evening of April 3, and three days later, a person who was identified as a Sunni of Uzbek descent stabbed two Shiite clerics to death in the courtyard of the eighth Shiite Imam in Mashhad, and the sequence of these two events fueled some speculation.
However, after the incident in which two Sunni students were killed, Golestan provincial officials highlighted the issue of "personal motivation" and dismissed other speculations, including "ethnicity."
In the case of the killing of two students in Mashhad, Mohammad Aslani and Mohsen Pakdaman, their killer, who was arrested at the scene of the murder, was identified as "Abdul Latif Moradi, 21 years old and of Uzbek descent," who "illegally entered Iran from the Pakistani border a year ago" and had settled in Mashhad.
In official reports, the two students who were killed were introduced as "jihadi students," and Ruhollah Harizawi, deputy head of the Islamic Propaganda Organization, said that these students were "distributing services" on the outskirts of Mashhad due to the "extraordinary deprivation" that exists.
In recent years, the outskirts of Mashhad have witnessed widespread migration of Sunnis from the southern and southeastern provinces of Iran, and the Iranian government had carried out detailed planning under the title of jihadi and deprivation reduction programs to counter the development and influence of Sunnis on the outskirts of Mashhad.
A day after that incident, Ebrahim Raisi ordered the Ministry of Intelligence to follow up on the Mashhad murders, but so far the Ministry of Intelligence has not issued a report in this regard.
On the other hand, although in the case of the murder of two Sunni students in Gonbad-e-Kavos, local officials emphasize that no foreign factor played a role in the murders and that only personal motivation is at stake, regarding the Mashhad murders, Iranian government officials, including Ebrahim Raisi, have emphasized that "this incident was definitely at the hands of one of the deviant elements and under the influence of American Takfiri groups."
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran has not explained which group he means by "American Takfiri group", but attributing such incidents to foreign countries, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, is a constant agenda of Iranian government officials.
Source: Radio Farda
